


Slow Spiral

by andchaos



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Croatoan/Endverse, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:15:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andchaos/pseuds/andchaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was in love with you and he didn’t know how to do it properly. You were in love with him and you knew you would never break through. You saved him once, but that stopped mattering long before the world ended. You wanted to die. He would have let you. In the morning he handed you your thigh holster and walked away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slow Spiral

The world has ended and almost everyone’s dead and you are in love with a battle-worn man with a thigh holster and a healthy appetite for self-hatred. He used to be your best friend, and in his own twisted way he used to be in love with you, too. Maybe he still is, but he’s a little emotionally constipated and a lot fucked up, and he doesn’t know how to love you anymore. Things were almost better when he was screaming.

 

Five years ago, he wasn’t this. Neither of you were. You used to marvel at humanity, in the beginning, when you first met him. You curled up in the same motel room and you used to think that maybe—maybe—maybe one day he would feel comfortable enough to lean over in the front seat of his Chevy and kiss you. You didn’t need his physical affection, of course; sometimes you made him laugh, and his grin was sunshine and his favorite whiskey and you thought that this was enough.

 

Four years ago he still knew how to get angry. When you started smoking marijuana, he got a little nervous, but he had his vice at the bottom of a bottle so he didn’t say anything. When you started having sex with everything that walked, he looked at you a little sideways and his brow furrowed a bit, but he frequently got in bed with any woman that was legal, so he didn’t say anything, not even when you upgraded _sleeping around_ to _organizing orgies_ , not even when he kind of wanted to join in. When you started doing amphetamines to offset the Absinthe, he got properly angry. You didn’t know what you were doing, you were ruining your life, you were going to kill yourself before the Apocalypse did it for you. But the next day he went out of his way to flirt with a girl with your blue eyes and black hair, so you popped a few more buttons and tried some tabs of acid, and when he kissed you against the hood of his car it was angry and hard and wanton, and he tasted like beer and liquor and cigarettes that you didn’t know he smoked, and you thought tomorrow you’d drink a little more and see if you couldn’t get his clothes off.

 

Three years ago he was a little reckless and a lot angry. All he did was scream at you, orders and insults and warnings. He smashed your liquor bottles and threatened to shoot you when you stole his. He threatened to throw you to the cannibals when he came by your cabin and you were shotgunning weed with a pretty girl with a thigh holster, and he seemed strangely gratified when you shouted how unfair it was that he could shack up with every girl in the camp but you weren’t allowed to do the same. He didn’t yell about it, after that. He told you that you were a hippie and you threw yourself into drugs and alcohol and sex and tried as hard as you could to feel.

 

Two years ago he started getting empty. He gave cursory touches while he fucked you and left when it was over, and if you did it in his bed he would work through the night so that he wouldn’t have to sleep next to you. He kissed you behind closed doors and did up your thigh holster in the mornings and threw you your gun in the mess hall. When you offered for him to join you in your cabin, he looked around and cursed at you for thinking this was anything more than it was, and he taunted you because he knew you were in love with him and he was better at hiding it. When he knocked on your door that evening, you let him in.

 

One year ago he was distant. He didn’t come by when he knew you had men and women inside your cabin, and he sent other people to tell you about missions, and he didn’t ask you to help him fight the monsters outside the camp, and he let you get high and fuck pointlessly and try to lose yourself in peace. You pushed him against a wall one day and asked calmly what had broken in him, and he shoved you away and tried to make you angry but you were too stoned and that night you fucked him into the mattress and he pretended that you cared and you pretended that you felt something. He was in love with you and he didn’t know how to do it properly. You were in love with him and you knew you would never break through. You saved him once, but that stopped mattering long before the world ended. You wanted to die. He would have let you. In the morning he handed you your thigh holster and walked away.

 

Nowadays, he’s jealous. A week ago you fell asleep in his bed and he was stripping and cleaning his weapons in a chair by the window, and you had too much to drink before and had cross-faded after the sex, and you were sleeping and you mumbled about five years ago when you wanted to kiss him in the front seat of his car and when your legs touched underneath diner tables, and his brother knew and he knew and _you_ knew and you thought that you would keep him with his whiskey smile but you thought that any incarnation of him touching you would be enough, and this, this wasn’t enough. In the morning you found him pushing fingers through your hair, and when he saw you blink awake he left his cabin and when you saw him later, you both knew not to talk about it, you both knew nothing had changed. He is jealous because you are in love with his past self and you would follow him into battle, every day, because he asked, because he used to order you around and he used to scream at you, and you weren’t the only one who fell. You both slammed into the ground and shattered and you both are still bleeding and you both try to patch it up with liquor bottles and meaningless sex and fighting without words, and you hope if you make him jealous enough he might kiss you more than perfunctorily in the front seat of his Jeep.

 

One night he asks you to go with him tomorrow, and you see flickers of his past self when he looks at you. You know that this is a suicide mission and you don’t think you’re going to be here tomorrow, so you gasp out _I love you_ when you kiss him against the walls of your cabin later and he doesn’t say it back, he doesn’t know how to voice the proper words and form his feelings into sentences, because he’s spent too long repressing them and they’re all tangled up behind a wall he built between the anger and the recklessness and the emptiness and the distance and the jealousy. He doesn’t say it but he _feels_ it and when you wake up in the morning he’s there, arms around your waist, and you lay there too long and trace the planes of his face and notice for the first time that he looks as he always did in sleep, and you imagine you have his past self lying there beside you. He is beautiful. You want to tell him but you don’t want this fragilely softened persona to turn back to gruffness. When he wakes up he doesn’t say anything but he kisses you and he lets you kneel down and strap on his thigh holster and he still doesn’t say anything and you kiss him before you both leave and you know that you’re both doing to die but it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, you would die for him and you’re going to die for him and you’ve only got a few hours left to live. You’re going to die _with_ him, you don’t hesitate, you don’t even think, you’re never going to let him die alone. You do more amphetamines and wash it down with more Absinthe even though you’re driving and he lets you even though you’re driving and you think it’s a sick sort  of reflection of the way you used to drive, when you were in a Chevy and not a Jeep and you were in the passenger seat and he was behind the wheel while his hand was around a flask and you still wanted to kiss him in the front seat and you _still_ want to kiss him in the front seat but you’re both going to die. And you don’t know if it’s better to be in love with a broken man who doesn’t know how to reciprocate right or with a dead man from the past who touched your thighs beneath diner tables, so you think that you want to pretend that the dead man is still alive and you find a tape in the glove compartment with his old favorite band that he hasn’t listened to in five years and you put it in and pretend, for a few hours, that you’re riding with his past self.

 

In the morning he sends you in to die. You know it’s a trap and he knows it’s a trap and the other four people with you know it’s a trap, and you two aren’t alone and you don’t do things when you’re not alone but you know he’s sending you to die while he tries to end the end of the world and you won’t get this again so before you leave you grab his collar and pull him in and kiss him and he kisses you back and you touch his cheek when you pull away. When you walk away to go to die you want to say that you’re in love with him but he already knows and you’re always going to follow him into battle even when he’s sending you on a suicide mission.

 

You think you fell a long time ago. You were broken before the animals tore into you and bit at your bones and you feel a little like you’re floating. Maybe you’ll go to Heaven and find the boy with the whiskey smile waiting for you. Maybe you’ll get to go home. After all, you’re dying for him. You wanted to die. He isn’t going to stop you. He isn’t going to save you. Your eyes close and you think you feel like an angel.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this tumblr post:  
> http://jebiwonkenobi.tumblr.com/post/12797953421


End file.
